We are raising funds for research! The 2015 Fight Aging! matching fund
to benefit ongoing SENS rejuvenation biotechnology programs presently
stands at $125,000. Please join us and add to this total: the larger the
fund, the bigger our grassroots fundraiser this October. This is a great
way to help speed the arrival of therapies that can bring an end to
age-related disease. Join in! »

SENS Research Foundation cofounder Aubrey de Grey has been in the European press of late - such as the interview quoted below. Automated translation of colloquial Spanish is almost as bad as that of Russian, so proceed with caution. Even so there is much to be said for living in an age in which I can complain about the quality of automated translation: its existence greatly lowers the barriers to ongoing communication between regions of the world.

Question: My daughter asked me why we die, what should I say?

Answer: You can say that the human body is a machine, a very complicated machine, but it should not surprise us that it stops working, because that happens to all machines, including cars. The good news is that cars can last much longer than was planned if given a really good and complete maintenance. That's why there are cars that are one hundred years old even if they were designed to only last ten or twenty. It should be the same for the human body and the only reason it does not happen is that our body is so complicated that we have not yet understood how to do that maintenance. But we're working on it.

Question: So I tell my daughter that she will live a thousand years?

Answer: Of course we do not know, but I think we have at least 50% chance of developing these maintenance technologies if we collect enough money to support research. In 20 or 25 years we will have therapies that affect people who are then 60 or 70 years old and rejuvenate them to the point of granting an additional 30 years of healthy life. That means they will have another 30 years in which we can build even better therapies and rejuvenate them once again. This is what I call the "escape velocity of aging" and is the reason I think the people who are born now may avoid the problems of being old. That means your longevity depends on the risk of dying from accidents, but not on the date you were born.

The same old story, as in every interview with him. Why you even bother to post them?!

Posted by: anonymous at January 31, 2014 6:47 AM

Post a comment; thoughtful, considered opinions are valued. Please note that comments incorporating ad hominem attacks, advertising, and other forms of inappropriate behavior are likely to be deleted. Note that there is a comment feed for those who like to keep up with conversations.

All of Fight Aging!, with the exception of the introductory articles, is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. In short, this means that you are encouraged to republish and rewrite Creative Commons licensed Fight Aging! content in any way you see fit. We only ask that that you are polite and (a) link to the original, (b) attribute the author, and (c) attribute Fight Aging!.